Sometimes games that are very casual but look great, can be a lot of fun to play. Tokaido comes to mind when I think a
bout games like that. Fantastic visuals with some easy, thematic game play. Which brings us to our new Kickstarter of the Week, Lanterns: The harvest Festival. My interest was originally piqued by the unique theme and the striking graphics. Lanterns is a tile placement game set in Imperial China. Players are tasked with decorating the Imperial palace with floating lanterns. While browsing the Kickstarter page, I kept having flashbacks to my games of Hanabi, which isn’t a bad thing. So what’s Lanterns about? Let’s find out!
From the Kickstarter Page:
The harvest is in, and now it’s time to celebrate! Lanterns: The Harvest Festival is a tile-placement game set in imperial China. Players act as artisan decorating the palace lake with floating lanterns. The artisan who earns the most honor before the festival arrives wins the game.
On your turn, you can take these three actions one time each:
• Place a lake tile, which gives every player (even your opponents!) a lantern card based on the orientation of the tile. (It also could give the active player bonus lantern cards or favor tokens, depending on the placement.
• Spend favor tokens to trade one lantern card for another.
• Dedicate sets of lantern cards to gain the honor you need to win the game.
The campaign page is full of photos, reviews and even has a print and play copy you can download if you want to test out the game before you jump in. I’m looking forward to checking out the final published version and hope it looks as good as it seems. If you’d like to become a backer, a $24 pledge will get you a copy of the game and all stretch rewards. Lanterns is scheduled to be in backers hands in June of 2015 and you have until to become a backer. So head over today and check it out.
